Jeft to lament his disobedience, and to pine without support. He may have succeeded in driving from his memory the miseries he has caused them; but this, if any thing, will rouse him from his apathy, and hatch the viper of remorse in his bosom. "Or, suppose a man about to commit a erime, and the same vision suddenly to impress itself upon his imagination;he will faulter-his hand will fail. The least that can be hoped is, that his thoughts will be forced into a new direction; and time be given, if he avail himself of it, for reason and virtue to resume their sway. "So much for the nature of the feeling which forms the subject of our discourse. It may be sufficient to say of those who have it not, that they are frequently more presumptuous than wise; and too much occupied with themselves, to observe what is due to others. There is reason to doubt, whether they will ever be grateful to those who shall confer favours upon them, since they shew no respect or gratitude, to those to whom all the world is under obligations. "Nevertheless, it must not be forgot ten, that how good soever this feeling is in itself, and how unnatural soever it may be, to be devoid of it; yet, there is little probability of its being cherished and kept alive, without a becoming conduct on the part of those to whom it is due. Every right-judging person, will make allowances for the querulousness, and the egotism, and even for the dogmatism, of age: these are the weak points, by nature, of that period of life. But let the old beware, how they affect the indiscretions of youth. Let them not descend from their station. Let it be far from them to shew, that they are ashamed of the characteristics of age. The glory of young men, say the Proverbs, is their strength, and the beauty of old men is the grey head. In like manner, there are duties and employments, which are peculiarly theirs pleasures and diversions, from which they must quietly recede. The old err greatly, when they think that they recommend themselves to the young, by imitation of their vices. There are serious thinkers almost in infancy; and severe judges of conduct even among the profligate; but, indeed, without any moral considerations, there is something in ill-timed dissipation, which creates disgust, instead of promoting sociality. the old are apt to fall;-an error of the present day, and not of those good times, when the relative duties of domestic life were better understood than they now seem to be. What I allude to is this: -Without stooping to imitate, or to join in, the vices of the young, they will sometimes endeavour to win their affections by indiscreet familiar intercourse. Now, it is one thing to relax austerity, another to forget decorum, The old must not expect to be loved in the first instance, and afterwards listened to as infallible oracles. They must be content to be respected first: for upon that foundation only can affection to them be reared up. I am not now speaking of the case of parents and children, where an attachment is imbibed with the first nourishment received in infancy: yet it is but too evident, that parents are often under a gross delusion, with respect to the treatment which should be adopted towards their children. They pretend to be their easy, and intimate, and confidential friends, instead of their grave and affectionate instructors. To bring this abont, they labour to induce them to throw off all restraint; and some have even a foolish pride in training their children to address them in terms of undutiful and odious familiarity. "Why, you might as well attempt to make the mountain bow to the plain, as attempt to unite the extremes of youth and age. Things forced into too close a contact, only dispart the more suddenly and widely. There are many coufidences unfitted for a parent's ear; many thoughts and feelings (I allude to such as are perfectly innocent), the communication of which forms the real bond of union amongst the young. How can they, who are upon a footing of complete equality, the playfellows of their children, and who must necessarily connive at many follies, in order to establish their new character, expect that they shall, in a moment, regain the tone of superiority; that they shall be regarded with reverence, when they rebuke, or be obeyed, when they command? Let it not be thought, that I would encourage reserve on either part. There is a province assigned to parents, in the discharge of their duties, in which they may shew both majesty and sweetness; but, if they step out of that province, they lose both the controul which they have by nature, and the estimation they might have gained in the exercise of "There is another mistake into which it." pp. 164-170. The remaining sermons relate to more general subjects. They are principally four, which were preached before the University of Oxford, and two on the Christian temper, and the means which God employs to bring men to salvation. They are the first in the volume'; but we have reserved them to the last, for the sake of some suggestions in one of them, which appear to be peculiarly appropriate to the present season of national difficulty. Before, however, we cite the passage to which we have just alluded, we must take permission to extract the following remarks on the influence of Friends in forming the character. "It is a common error for people to suppose that they possess a formed and decided character, which will remain unchanged in the active scenes of life, just as it may be seen to do in the incidents of a fictitious narrative. I do not mean that they flatter themselves with the idea of being invulnerable by temptation. That is greater weakness and vanity than falls to the lot of the generality of mankind: but they fancy that whatever they do, they will do with their own free-will; and that, whether they act right or wrong, they will act independently of others. This is far from being the truth, We are less the lords of ourselves, than the creatures of others. For example, there is something like accident, in the formation of friendships, which strangely alters our sentiments and habits. A man may live many years before he meets with that congenial disposition, or commanding intellect, which opens out the capacities of his soul by cooperation, or controls him by natural superiority; or, losing these advantages early, he may not recover them again, and feel all the miseries arising from weakness and indecision, without fully ascertaining the cause of them—namely, that he is left to himself. "With respect to direct advice, how ever well intended, it often fails of accomplishing its object; either because they who give it cannot avoid assuming an air of authority and superior wisdom; or because those who ask, or receive it, have, for the most part, made up their minds to follow their own inclinations. But it is not always entirely lost on these accounts; CHRIST. OBSERV, No. 185. and there are times when it comes with double force; as, for instance, when it recurs at a distant period, strengthened and substantiated by circumstances; grows out of our own experience after we when the thing formerly recommended, had long forgotten it, and then is called up at once to our recollection, as if to confirm the decisions of our own judg ment. It is then of use to have been forewarned, though we did not profit by the immediate admonition." pp. 106-108. We must now content ourselves with the extract to which we have already alluded. dearth of piety, we are now too apt to "In the pride of philosophy, or the refer to secondary causes, all those results which secondary causes are in any degree imagined to affect. There was a time when national calamities were believed to be Divine judgments; when solemn humiliations were something more than idle ceremonies; when, the arm of God being supposed to turn the tide of battle, prayer naturally preceded every enterprize, and praise followed every success. But the general diffusion of free opinions on religious and moral matters, has, it seems, disturbed our acquiescence in tenets which were once undisputed; and the dread of being thought ignorant or supersti tious, in the midst of an enlightened age, has superseded in our hearts the fear of God. We now see in the ruin of states, no other operating cause but the weakness or perfidy of rulers; and we discover sufficient reason for the success of villany, in well-combined resources, and prompt decision. "Nor is the case different in private life. If our secret thoughts do not altogether belie our uttered sentiments, and it is not natural that they should, we are apt to refer the treachery of friends, or the coldness of patrons, to bad fortune, rather than to the aversion of Providence; and our inability to arrest the progress of disease, to the failure of human skill, rather than to the will of that Power, in whose hands are the issues of life and death. In fact, it is difficult to believe that we have not a very strong influence over moral causes, when we perceive that the boundaries of science are enlarging every day by our own efforts, and that truth seems to be the never-failing result of investiga ion andexperiment. 2 X "Yet, though we may conjecture that the agency of God is, in such regions, withdrawn into narrower limits, or the range of our own powers extended, there are, nevertheless, certain affections and feelings which are quite beyond our control; tender places, as it were, of the mind, which shrink from the impression of a hand which is not of this world. As in them we cannot easily discover the operation of second causes, so we are here more ready to acknowledge the First Great Cause who has created the soul, and given to it the sensibility to pain." pp. 77-79. It can hardly fail to occur to the reader of this passage, that we have in a great measure passed by the blessing of God through a season of national distress without one act of national humiliation or acknowledgment to the Almighty. This (we seriously think) could not have happened some centuries ago; and the reason of its happening now has been well pointed out by our author. A philosophizing spirit has prevailed amongst us, which, while it has enlarged our acquaintance with second causes, has diminished our sense of dependence upon the First Great Cause of all. In truth, it appears (and it is a humiliating acknowledgment) that our recognition of Providence is limited to those events which we cannot trace to any other origin; as if our knowledge of his ways could make him less our Governor, or as if the extent of our privileges could diminish his claim upou our gratitude. Whatever may be our superiority in the general diffusion or in the progressive advancement either of knowledge or of benevolence, in public acts of piety we have greatly declined from our ancestors; and we shall not think that the passage just quoted has had its fair effect upon our readers, if it does not incite them to pray to the Giver of all grace, that it will please him, in his boun tiful goodness, to increase our faith, that we may regard him as the Author of all our blessings, and "in all our troubles put our whole trust and confidence in his mercy, through Jesus Christ, our only Advocate and Redeemer." LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL INTELLIGENCE, &c. &c. GREAT BRITAIN. PREPARING for publication:-A Descriptive Catalogue of the Geological Specimens deposited in the Museum of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall, by Dr. J. A. Paris; -The Works of Virgil, partly original, and partly altered from Dryden and Pitt, by Mr. John King;-An Historical Display of the Effects of Physical and Moral Causes on the Character and Circum stances of Nations, by Mr. John Bigland;-A Poem, by the Right Hon. Sir Wm. Drummond, under the title of Odin; A Key to the Old Testament, or a summary View of its several Books, by the Rev. H. Rutter;-and The Cottager's Companion, intended to instruct the Labouring Poor in the Art of Cottage Gardening, &c.; by Mr. W. Salisbury, of Sloane-street In the press:-Shakspeare and his Times; including the Biography of the Poet, &c., by Dr. Drake;-The late Dr. Leyden's Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Africa;-History of Whitby, with a statistical survey of the vicinity to the distance of twenty-five miles, by the Rev. George Young;-and (by subscription) The Memoirs of the late Miss Emma Humphries of Frome, Somersetshire; with a Series of Letters to Young Ladies, and to Parents; by F. East. The Board of Agriculture have re solved to give the following among their premiums:-To the person who shall draw up, and produce to the Board, the best Essay on the Means of employ ing the industrious and unoccupied Poor-the gold medal, or one hundred pounds: to be produced on or before the 1st of March, 1818. The Aurora Borealis re-appeared, after an absence of some years, on the 8th of April. Observations were made at London, Derby, Leeds, Paris, and other places. It was stated at the late Warwick Assizes, by the judge who presided on that occasion, that the use of Spring Guns is considered by the most eminent lawyers as illegal. He severely reprobated the cruelty of the practice, alleging that the law never intended to give any man the right of shooting another for so trivial a trespass as the cutting a stick in a hedge. A child who had been dangerously wounded by seventeen pebbles, on such an occasion, while in search of his kite, was the plaintiff, and received 1201. damages. It has been ascertained, by experiment, that Grain which has begun to germinate, if used as seed, will not spring but in the proportion of one half the quantity employed; if strongly germinated, not more than a third; and if fired or moulded, not more than a fifth. In all these cases, the young shoot is feeble and unpromising. Various substances have been recommended in mak ing bread from the flour of germinated or melted grain; particularly magnesia and the alkalis, which, when judiciously employed in small quantities, are found greatly to assist the operation and to im. prove the bread, without any injurious consequences to the human frame. The introduction of Steam Boats into general use, has received a temporary check, by an unhappy event which lately occurred at Norwich, in an explosion, by which several lives were lost. It appears, however, that the boiler in this case was cast-iron; the valve had been criminally loaded, and the fire too much forced, for the purpose of getting a-head of a rival boat. We trust that the melancholy event will have the effect - not of impeding the progress of a useful and important national improvement-but of securing, in future, a more cautious attention to the construction of the machinery, and the prudence of the servants employed in conducting it. Several persons in different parts of the kingdom have lately remonstrated against the unnecessary cruelty of pegging" "crabs and lobsters; which is done to prevent their injuring one another, or wounding their tormentors, Every purpose is answered by tying the claws instead of pegging them; and in Weymouth, the fishermen have been in duced to adopt the more humans me. thod, by a general resolution of the respectable inhabitants, not to purchase any fish that are pegged. Indeed, in dependently of the cruelty of the practice, the fishmongers prefer the mode of tying the claws, as instances frequently occur of lobsters wounded by the peg wasting away under their sufferings, and mortification of the part often ensues. Thousands die in this manner every year. Eels, lobsters, and other animals, which suffer much in the usual modes of killing or dressing them, might be humanely dispatched in a moment, by merely puncturing the brain with a sharp iron pin, invented for the purpose. It is ascertained, by experiment, that with a proper apparatus one cask of coals will serve to distil six casks of water. A French vessel about to proceed on a voyage of discovery, is to take only water sufficient for a fort. night; and, instead of the remainder, coals, which will be but a sixth part of the tonnage. This distilled water is perfectly as good as fresh water that has been a fortnight on board, Sculpture have been recently brought from Java, consisting of figues of Siva, Ganesa, Durga, Buddha, &c. They evidence the extensive diffusion of the Hindu Mythology in the Eastern Islands, as well as the high state of civilization and scientific skill to which the natives had arrived at very remote periods of history. LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. THEOLOGY. The Advantages of Solitude: a Sermon preached at Salter's-hall Meetinghouse, by the late Rev. Hugh Worthington, April 20, 1777; never before published. 1s. 6d. A Second Lay-Sermon; by S. T. Coleridge. 8vo. 5s. 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